Yeah, it required a little finesse, but ultimately it wasn't too bad for me...
I've been thinking about putting up a post with a video showing some basic soldering/desoldering techniques...I've thought of doing that for awhile. Sincerely not that I'm an expert, but if a picture is worth 1000 words, a video can be incalculable. I know how much I would have benefitted from seeing a video of demagging or adjusting tape tension when I was struggling through all that...Folks were so patient and helpful here and all their posts would have been just as helpful, but there is something about seeing a process in motion. We'll see...but some essential bits for working on the double-sided PCB's, or any solder work for that matter is to:
- have a healthy solder vacuum pump (I just cleaned mine out for the first time and applied petroleum jelly to the seals and its got a kick now! )
- have a good iron (I use one of these per evm1024's recommendation and I can't tell you what a difference that alone has made. I realize the Antex M isn't fancy...no heat adjustment, no stand/holder/base station or anything like that...it is simple and basic but boy it heats up quick, is so easy to handle and has really made a difference in my solder jobs...nice and compact and the tip temp has worked for everything I've thrown at it with working on my Tascam stuff
- keep the tip dressed (shaped...file it back to a chisel when it gets deformed)
- keep the tip clean (I use a piece of wet t-shirt material and wipe often, and I find that even if the iron sits for even a few minutes while I'm stuffing the next round of components it gets a thin coke on part of the tip so I scrape that off with a utility knife and then wipe before going back to work)
- prep your solder pads (tin them if needed, or if you are removing a component to put something new in clean the pad with iso alcohol after pulling the old part)
All the above basically serves to enable the heat from the tip to act quick and go where you are trying to put it; it removes foreign barriers to the heat conduction, and in that way the time the tip is on the work is kept to a minimum.
With that being said, for, say, removing a cap on a double-sided PCB I take my healthy solder pump in one hand and the clean tinned iron in the other and get both in close, apply the iron and as soon as the solder is molten I zip in there with the pump and get it good...I found last night that when done right the pump will even get some of the solder from the other side. So I do both on that side and then flip the PCB over and get whatever is left on the other side, and then I found it helped to trim the little bits of lead now exposed back on the first side...get a
good pair of flush cutters at your local electronics shop. Another valuable tool. I paid $8 for mine it was well spent. So now you've gotten as much solder off as you can with your clean good iron and your healthy vacuum pump, and you've trimmed excess lead material. Now I go back to the component side and heat one of the leads up and rock the cap back to get that side out, and then heat the other side up and out it comes. Sometimes in a tight spot I had to just cut the cap out and then grab the lead that's left with some little locking scissor clamp thingies (can't remember what they're called) and then heat it up to get it out. Sometimes there's still solder left in the hole.
I'd try one more time to suck it out but it was difficult, so I took a push pin to open the hole up. Be careful if you have to do that...the fiberglass PCB's are pretty durable and I found that the Control PCB (and it may be the same with your amp cards...its not with mine, but my 48 has the nicer material for the amp cards) has a really good coating over the traces that is burn resistant and holds the foil on nice, but I'd hate to have to repair a trace on a PCB like that...its just so tight, at least for my skill-level.
Let me know if you have any questions or if I can help. Have you had much experience doing solder work on PCB's? A year ago I'd had none, just building
lots of cables and snakes, but I'm really comfortable with it now...made some mistakes (repairable ones) and got lots of good advice and help here so there ya go.